STATIC TRANSLATION OF NETWORK FORWARDING PLANE MODELS INTO TARGET IMPLEMENTATION IN THE HARDWARE ABSTRACTION LAYER

摘要

A routing controller in a communication network may be responsible for generating a device model that defines intended forwarding behavior of the network. The device model may be generated using a target-independent universal language of network primitives. The controller may send the device model to a target device. The device controller may include one or more known identifiers associated with one or more portions of the model. The target device may know the mapping between the known identifiers and the capabilities of the target device. Upon receiving the device model from the controller, the target device may retrieve the known mapping to statically translate the device model to implementation. The static translation of the device model provides reusability of the previously determined mappings. The target device is not required to have a translator for dynamically translating the device model each time that the device model is received from the controller. An embodiment shows a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for OpenFlow.